A Man I Never Knew

A Man I Never Knew

A cold grey landscape against which three spindly blackened trees are outlined as if they were illustrated in black ink, and a forefront of flattened burnt out grass revokes my imagination as I gaze at the faded photograph. The only landmark in this stark, lonely tableau is a sign to the left, which clearly says “Battlefields” which leads me on to the following story.

George William Smith was born in 1906 in Newbottle, near Houghton-le-Spring. His parents were John Edward and Mary Elizabeth Smith. He was educated at Newbottle School. He grew up and played football for the school, as well as indulging in the normal riotous childhood scrapes such as getting locked in the cellar of the Sun Inn and pinching pocket loads of apples from the old Rectory.

He left school at 14 and went to work at the Colliery as a miner. At the age of 19 he enlisted into the Regular Army in the Norfolk Regiment and by the time he was 20 he had transferred to the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. He spent four years policing the British Empire in India and received the Indian General Service Medal with clasp ‘North West Frontier’.

He came back via China after helping to put down a rebellion in that country and was transferred to the Army Reserve List in 1927. Back in Newbottle, he again went to work at the Colliery.

An army black and white photograph of George shows that he was quite thin, maybe freckly with a nice smile and a shock of fair, curly hair.

He married Mary Ann Atwill, or Polly as she was always known, in 1933 and had two boys, Edward and Colin. They lived at No.10 Races Terraces in Newbottle.
As a Reservist, in 1939 he was called up to start training for the Second World War and was posted to Alton in Hampshire.

In an extract from a letter sent to Polly dated April 2nd 1940, Billy or 5768858 Fusilier George William (Ginger) Smith writes,

“My Own Darling Polly,
Just a few lines to let you know I received your most welcome letters five minutes ago, with the five shillings and thanking you very much for it.
This will be about the last letter I’ll write from Alton, but I’ll write as soon as I get the chance and let you know where I am. Its no good you answering this letter as we move on Thursday, but where to I don’t know, but I’m almost sure its France, we only have another day in Alton.
Keep your pecker up and remember the song. “Your one in a million who never complains, who knows that the sunshine will follow the rain.” Just look after yourself and the kiddies, and I’ll try my best to come home intact, you know how much I miss you but we dare not think about it a great deal, or we would go mad. You will think that I am downhearted by the tone of this letter, but I’m not; only homesick a great deal, and my heart has that funny feeling. So I think I will talk about something cheerful!
We’ve just had our teas off the women who ran the canteen, all the six of us, Dusty, Jim, Skipper, Shanks, Shaw and myself (Ginger). They bid us goodbye and our landlord took Dusty and me out last night and gave us a drink or two and he was introducing us to his business friends as my two boys. In fact everybody in Alton has that downhearted look on their faces because they know the Battalion is moving, they have pretty good to us the bit time we have been here.
Well Darling, I’ll have to draw to a close so cheerio and for God’s sake take care of yourself because you know you are mine. Give my love to mother and every one else, God Bless you my lovely little wife.
Your Ever-loving Husband, Billy.
P.S. tell my Colin I might be home in August:

The next letter recorded was from France and dated 28th April 1940.

My Own Darling Polly,
I received your two birthday cards last night, please tell the two rips that Daddy is very pleased with their card. Well Darling we have moved again, and the six of us are billeted in the cellar of a house occupied by a very charming family with two kiddies, and we have endless fun with the kiddies, a girl aged eight and boy six. We also get on very well with the couple we have many a good laugh trying to understand each other, but we’ve now got a translation book and we make good headway.

So the Club has decided to send money, well its best because the cigarettes out here are very cheap 1 ½ francs (2 ½ d) for the woodbines and we get an issue of 50 woodbines every Sunday, so you see it’s a waste of money sending cigarettes, but I could do with some toothpaste (Gibbs tin), toothpaste and razor blades (Minores).
So keep your spirits up, because I don’t think this will be long before its finished. I will draw to a close now so cheerio till next time. Give my love to all,
Your Own Loving Husband,
Billy.

On 4th April 1940 the 7th Battalion of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers were attached to the 51st Highland Division and deployed along the Saar region in the North East of France under French command. They were one of the units, which were not evacuated from Dunkirk. The sector the 51st Division was looking after lay between Launstroff and Colmen behind the Maginot Line and comprised of a considerable number of English units, some French troops as well as the basic component of three all-Scottish brigades. The 51st Highland Division became cut off from the remainder of the British Expeditionary Forces.

On the 27th May the Division was moved from the Saar area to Abbeville via Paris, their next objective being the recapture of the Abbeville bridgehead. They failed to loosen the German grip on the crossings at Abbeville and St Valery, however they had worked their way round the German flank, a difficult journey but they had accomplished it. They were still under French command.

On 4th June a final attack was made to capture the Abbeville bridgehead, this was the day the evacuation from Dunkirk was completed but the Division were totally unaware of the speech Churchill made in the Commons that day about never surrendering and fighting to the end. They may as well have been on another planet. Overall the assault had been a failure, but it would have made no difference if it had been a success because behind the Somme the Germans were massing the strength of Army Group B and their attack began on 5th June. This battle was to be called the Battle for France.

This was a day of blazing heat and one of the soldiers’ problems was thirst. The Division showed their awesome reputation as orders to detachments to return when they were bypassed or surrounded were disregarded many men decided to stay and fight to the end.

It was thought that George was badly wounded around the crossing beside Cahon-Guy, west of Abbeville and Polly received correspondence from the Regimental Paymaster on 30th July 1940, an agonising three months later, which advised her,

“I have to refer with regret to the notification you will have received that your husband is at present held to be missing, in order to inform you of the allowances which are payable to you during the period you are awaiting further information. During the period a solider is missing allowances are payable for seventeen weeks as follows: - 4 shillings per week If at the end of this period, no further news of your husband is available, allowances will continue but such allowances will be authorised by the War Office.”

Various letters from the War Organisation followed, such as the one dated 18th October 1940,

Dear Mrs Smith
“We very much regret that, owing to the great difficulties under which this Organisation has been working, your letter of September 15th has remained so long unacknowledged. Thank you for giving us the names of Fusilier Miller and Fusilier Dobson, who are known to be prisoners in Stalag Nos. XX1BZ and XX1B. We will try and get in touch with them and enquire for your husband, Fusilier G.W. Smith, No 5768858, 7th Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.

We still have no news of him here, but he is on our list for enquiry and as soon as we hear anything further, we will let you know.”

Finally, on the 23rd April, 194l, Polly received a letter from Fusilier J.C. Miller, prisoner of war in Stalag No. XX1BZ which related the following information and confirmed her growing doubts and suspicions.

“In reply to your letter the last I heard of 5868858 George William Smith, Fusilier, 7th. Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, was from Fusilier Garvie of the same Battalion. He told me that Smith was badly wounded in the head, near the Somme Canal and had helped him as far as he could until the order to move was given, when they were compelled to leave Smith behind”.

It was not until the 22nd September 1941 however, that Polly received a letter from the Infantry Record Office, an extract of which read:

“It is my painful duty to inform you that your husband No. 5768858 Fusilier George William Smith, and of the lapse of time during which no further news has been received, he will now be recorded as “Presumed Died of Wounds” on or since 5th June 1940.”

“As the Battalion were retreating, your husband would not have been buried by his own people but either by the Germans or the Red Cross. We do know that the French and Belgian Red Cross are tending the graves of our fallen soldiers with the greatest care, keeping flowers on them whenever possible and I hope this knowledge may be of some little comfort to you”.

This boy from Newbottle, who grew up and was educated at Newbottle School near Houghton-le-Spring, who first of all enlisted in December 1925 and went on to gain Indian General Service Medal and Star and War Medals 1939-45, was found lying on the Battlefield of the Somme near the Somme Canal. He was reported missing on the 5th June 1940 and presumed died of wounds on or since the 5th June 1940. He was moved from a grave at Cahon-Guy Temporary Burial Ground to a permanently maintained cemetery at Longueval (London Highway) Cemetery, 19 miles 5th Arras, France in 1948.

The brave soldier who gave his life to save mankind from tyranny and left behind a wife and two young children and lots of memories, was my grandfather.

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